Bêlit is a character appearing in the fictional universe of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. She is a pirate queen who has a romantic relationship with Conan. She appears in Howard's Conan novelette Queen of the Black Coast, first published in Weird Tales #23 (5 May 1934). She is the first substantial female character to appear in Howard's Conan stories. Partly thanks to her substantial appearance in the Marvel Comics' Conan series, the character is recognized as being Conan's "true love".
She was selected as the fourth-greatest pirate by Wired magazine's Geekdad blog.
Appearance
As a native of the Hyborian nation of Shem, Bêlit is Shemite. Her name may have been taken from Bel, god of thieves in her native land. (Historically, Bêlit was an Akkadian (meaning "lady, mistress"), and appearing in Greek form as Beltis (Βελτις), considered to be the name of the wife of the god Bêl.)
Apart from jewellery, she wears only sandals and a red silk girdle. Despite her race and her lack of clothing in the tropical sun, her skin is "ivory white".
She is described in her first appearance:
Character
As a pirate Bêlit ranges across the coast of Kush (Hyborian Africa) and as far north as Zingara (Hyborian Spain) aboard her ship, the Tigress. She calls herself the "Queen of the Black Coast" and her crew appear to regard her with awe. She seems to have no problem as the only woman in a ship with an all-male pirate crew, evidently having made it abundantly clear to them that any sexual approach against her will would be out of the question, nor do any of the crew manifest jealousy when she takes up Conan as her lover.
She is described as a passionate and elemental woman. She and Conan fall in love at first sight - even though that first sight is in the middle of a battle, both facing each other with swords in their hands and Conan having just killed many of Bêlit's crew.
Despite her strength as a warrior, she is rendered subservient by her love for Conan, as Imola Bulgodzi writes in Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian: "The fact that Bêlit strips naked, tears off her ornaments and performs her mating-dance on the blood-stained deck, then throws herself at Conan's feet, clearly shows that she gives herself to this man and by giving herself she also takes a subordinate position. Despite her successful command of a pirate ship and a crew of black giants, Howard allows Bêlit no equality with Conan; she experiences their lovemaking as well in terms of subordination: 'you have held and crushed and conquered me'."
Bêlit is, however, strongly avaricious which is described as a racial trait: "The Shemite soul finds a bright drunkenness in riches and material splendor, and the sight of this treasure might have shaken the soul of a sated emperor of Shushan." It is this that leads to her death, killed by an ancient winged ape-like creature - hanged from the yard arm of her own ship by a ruby necklace stolen from a city of the "old ones".
She temporarily returns from death, as she had vowed, to protect her lover from the same creature's attack later in the story.
It was from Bêlit that Conan—native of a landlocked country and a complete landlubber at the beginning of "Queen of the Black Coast"—learned how to be a sailor and a pirate. During their entire time together, Conan was content to follow Bêlit's lead, and never disputed her authority: "Conan generally agreed to her plans. Hers was the mind that directed their raids, his the arm that carried out her ideas. It was a good life." Conan proved an apt pupil, and after Bêlit's death had a long piratical career on his own.
Fiction
Bêlit was a fearsome yet beautiful pirate queen of the Hyborian Age who became the lover of Conan the Cimmerian. Often regarded as Conan's first and greatest love, she was tragically killed at the height of their romance. Bêlit was originally created in 1934 by fantasy author Robert E. Howard. She made her first appearance in the anthology magazine Weird Tales as the titular character of the novelette Queen of the Black Coast. In the Howard canon she had only this one appearance, being killed at the end of the same novelette where she was introduced. However, Poul Anderson added a book-length description of Conan's life and adventures with Bêlit in the 1980 Conan the Rebel.